what is the last letter of a six-letter word meaning "to consult together" or "to compare opinions"?
I have been participating in the Alliance for Democracy for a while now, and in the class of this I am writing certain long essays which will be posted to the various on-line lists and web pages of this group. As these essays are written, I will also identify them hither.
alphabetic character one:
The following paragraphs are seed thoughts, to give context and, more importantly, some degree of freedom from a few already besides rigid thought forms arising in the AfD:
There is a hidden power available, which transcends what we assume is necessary to achieve political change. This power has to practice with forces of culture and meaning. At this present moment of history, culture and significant are in neat flux. Those who take truthful hold of these forces will take the strongest position in determining the future of our civlization.
The old mode is "activism", with its dangerous brother, the tempation to hurry things through radical action (revolution). Ghandi was for a free Bharat. Because of this, he was profoundly opposed. Those who sought to oppose him, failed, floundering on the rock of his volition. Ghandi was non confronting the English.
The land of the world is already an ongoing process of social metamorphosis. This process leads through degrees of chaos and anarchy , naturally. What it (the procedure) wants is new forms of order.
We create new order past what we requite ("render"). Mod politics suffers because most people are too busy demanding "rights", rather then giving duties. No society thrives when its members merely take .
A comparable illustration can exist found in the thought of tools. We, at the nowadays moment, lack the cultural and social tools to make the tools to make the new social forms .
For this process of tool making , the AfD needs many talents: activists, philosophers, thinkers, doers, democratically oriented, republically oriented, lawyerly oriented, and and so along.
We are a grouping of people who have imagined a quite wonderful house; merely who have amid u.s. those who want to play in the house, others who are excavation the foundation, and notwithstanding others who aren't yet satisfied with the plans. We tin't live in the firm until it is congenital, and if we blitz too fast we volition build it on sand.
The first tool we have to acquire to use is the dialogue . (for more on detail on these themes encounter: Song of the Grandfathers.
My outset contacts with the Alliance for Democracy (AfD) were accompanied by a feeling of hope. As my feel became deeper, and as the initial view gained more detail, certain problematic characteristics began to appear. Whether these are matters of mere youthfulness - the AfD is after all only i to two years by conception - or whether they are genetic, i.e. permanent fixtures of the impulse, only time will tell. Even so, at this indicate in time, the best service I can return this impulse is to identify these problems, and place them before the dialogues of the AfD for the reflection and consideration of others.
Of course, there will exist those who volition not consider these matters problems at all. Others will not accept that this writer'southward agreement could be whatever better and then their own, and therefore what I identify as disharmonies beneath are cypher more than than mere stance. Since I do not consider my views mere opinions, or to exist mistaken in any essential sense, perhaps, right at the beginning, I ought to justify why what is written here should be paid careful attention by the membership of the AfD.
Let me begin with an analogy. No ane in their correct mind, when a medical crunch is nowadays, would place the health of themselves, or their child, in the hands of someone who has no training as a doctor, or surgeon. Cognition and expertise are givens in this modern world.
Withal, when it comes to our public life, especially to the social/political dynamics of the modernistic world, anyone who can vote frequently imagines themselves capable of all those judgments they need their public servants to brand. Political dialogue is ofttimes filled with assumptions equally to the ease and simiplicity of finding what the needed action should exist in any given situation. In the dialogues of the AfD, the most complicated social/political realities are resolved with the flick of an opinion, and without much sense of either the impossibility of accomplishing the wished for result, or the real world consequences if in fact that opinion were to become public policy.
Perhaps it will assist to look at information technology this fashion. Nosotros all starting time out life ignorant of many things. As we begin to actually think for ourselves, in boyhood, we also begin to learn (somewhat) freely chosen opinions, which nosotros add to the already existing influence of culture and family on our views. Over the rest of life, education, both formal and self directed, as well equally personal experience, may mature our ideas about the world. At any phase of life, the view we hold may run from mere opinion and prejudice, to a deep and wise noesis.
The last is not acquired without effort. At each phase of growth, what has been thought, has to exist able to give way to something new. Fixed views, which cannot give way to new facts, or to a deeper understanding, are the sign of a rigid heed. What a pol calls his position on an issue tin be just that - a rigid credo having no relationship to the real world. Many people have stiff views on political and social bug, nevertheless at the same time may know almost aught most the realities involved. Passion is no substitute for sustained attempt at seeking understanding and truth.
Even then, the powerful feelings that bulldoze these opinions to the surface, regardless of their lack of wisdom in so many instances, these feelings are completely meritorious and righteous. Human beings seem to have a sense of rightness about matters, that it is very wise to trust. However, that sense may mislead if it urges us to abandon the search for true understanding. We practise, through our sense of what is right, oft know what the effect should be; but the path to actually realizing that result is non to be plant without cede and endeavor, and existent knowledge of how human societies work.
This same absence of appreciation of the realities already lives in the current elites who concur power. They are, themselves, no more articulate or agreement of just with what they are dealing, than the ordinary voter. The politician is just as oftentimes clueless equally everyone else, when it comes to the deep questions underlying modern social/political truths. Attempts are often fabricated, ordinarily by members of our intellectual elites, to retrieve through to wise pathways leading toward good results (e.g. George Volition's: Statecraft every bit Soulcraft); and, fifty-fifty Newt Gingrich has tried, through his association with Alvin Toffler, to notice deeper and more pertinent ways of agreement.
Yet, despite these efforts, modern poloticians, and modernistic voters, in the main possess only superifical views of the human nature, history, sociciolgy, religion, scientific discipline, and all that must be integrated into a whole, in gild to find a way to a wise guidance of modernistic civilisation.
Virtually no ane understands the true dynamics of our mutual social and political existence. Many people have pieces of understanding. And, considering the social/political reality is plastic, that is, it is malleable, the situation itself adapts to our sick employ of information technology.
For example: the Bang-up Society, fostered past Lyndon Johnson et.al., was ill conceived; its authors hardly understood at all what they were about. Their intentions were admirable, but their existent knowledge abysmal. Few programs worked; most promises could not be kept. Many people'due south expectations were raised, and when the hoped for results did not materialize, the anger and the frustration was all the greater.
Does this common ignorance hateful there is no hope? Of course not. Only nosotros will only brainstorm to notice the right offset steps when there is an acquittance of the absenteeism of agreement. If I think I know everything, I volition not be open to learning anything new.
Consider modern medicine, for all its flaws. Public health over the earth is much ameliorate then information technology was a hundred years agone. Individuals live longer, more than children survive babyhood. A perfect world? Of grade non, simply there has been real progress in our medical agreement and real progress in our public application of solutions.
I can go to schoolhouse and learn medicine. Ane can go to school and learn public wellness. But where can one become to schoolhouse and learn, actually acquire, how societies - every bit complicated every bit this modernistic world is - how these societies work?
The answer to that question is: Nowhere. Not the Kennedy School for Government, or Wharton School of Economics, or whatever other formal structure of which you lot can think. Why is this?
Considering, in the first place, while many pretend, no one really knows. Human being knowledge, while complicated and enormous (in some instances) does not encompass all that we need to know. In the second identify, our systems of education lead toward specialization, when what is chosen for is not a specialist, but a generalist. Instead of asking what someone, who might want to understand modern social/political dynamics, should know, we ought to inquire: What shouldn't they know?
At present lest someone wants to suggest that modern society already works, and what's there to know, my question to them is:: If it already works, why does anybody want to gear up it?
Do I claim to know? Is this paper asserting that its author has this knowledge which is then missing from the minds of and so many others? No, I won't claim it. Simply, at the same time, I won't deny the very broad education that providence has granted me; or the questions that have driven me from my earliest years; or the talents I seem to have that few others take; or that I have, in fact, spent years (well-nigh of my life - probably at to the lowest degree 40 years) trying to answer but those needed questions: What is a society? What is civilization? How did the world get the way it is? What is human nature/psychology? How practise religious impulses effigy into to how the world works? What exercise the scientific ideas of the 19th century contribute to this thing? What is the office of fine art and civilisation? What is law, as a social process? Why practice political parties tend to become mere enforcers of ideologies, rather than being realists? What is really happening in human societies in the present? Is a society a living organism, i.e. does it follow laws like to those we see in biology? What is the relationship betwixt my ain thinking and the social/political world I discover? If I change myself, in what fashion should I change, and how will that effect what I know or don't know? Does the world need whatsoever longer the same kind of leaders information technology needed in the past? How exercise groups function and communities office in a world were individualism seems so out of control? How does something like homelessness and poverty arise in the globe? What is evil? What is truth? Why practise we dream things we cannot manifest? How tin we manifest things we do dream? Is culture sick? Does it need some kind of social doctor? How could 1 know the wellness of a society?
Now peradventure, if 1 lived with these questions burning in the soul for many years, and if maybe providence aided them in their quest for answers, merely maybe they might know something others could find useful and helpful, if these same others could bother themselves to recognize their own limits, and their need for some source, or someone to pause the ice and raise the deep questions, and invite the deep dialogue, which will then get united states away from this superficial assumption that we already know improve how to make the world the way it should be, and that nosotros should be in charge because nosotros've got the answers.
The commencement human activity on the path to wisdom is humility. The world doesn't need more know-it-alls; it needs wisdom, temperance, honesty, truthfulness, sacrifice and hard work.
If the AfD can reign in its rush to solve all the world's issues, and, get more modest in its expectations of itself, then that instead it discovers its true, just however hidden, assets and purpose, simply perchance it might perform a service the world needs.
And then what are the disharmonies of the AfD mentioned above? Well, I just went over some of them. They're normal human problems. Nothing unusual. We care deeply and then rush in when we ought to intermission and realize our ignorance. We confuse what we wish the world was, for the answer to our hurt. Corporations didn't arise in the earth overnight, and the social forces driving their existence and their tendencies are not understood by the world in general, much less the Alliance. All we are doing is demonising them - they're the current bogey human being. We can arraign them all we want, just the fact is that they are only part of the problem; and, if nosotros abstract them out of the context in which they exist (the current atmospheric condition of mod civilization), then we falsify our agreement and thereby doom our hopes from the start.
Anti-corporate rhetoric is no answer to what ails our society. Information technology is a superficial assay of something whose dynamics are several orders more complex. Its like looking at your paw and seeing a wart and thinking cut off the finger with the wart is the mode to cure the wart. I am non proverb that multinationals aren't running amuck, but attacking them is not only futile, it misses the point. Corporations are embedded in the economic structure of the modern earth, and they are a pocket-sized social organ within a greater and more complex gild, but they are not the cause of pollution, or disease, or poverty or any other social trouble. These causes lie deeper, and since I know that everyone not merely wants, but needs to think these things out for themselves, all I am going to say is this: yes, merely, ... delight think about information technology. And remember it through and call up before you act, and understand the deviation between feeling and thinking, and don't dismiss your feelings, considering the heart knows much the head does non; but at the aforementioned time don't confuse the immediate thoughts those feelings cause for the answer to anything.
We feel the worlds pain, and our own. That is being human. Okay, let'southward gear up the cause of this hurting, if we can, if that's possible. But the emptying of suffering and evil from the earth is a problem that has perplexed the best: Christ and Buddha, just to requite a couple of examples. And those two, they don't brand it simple and they don't tell us to get after the other guy. The wise ones are pretty consistent on this, you clean your own house first, and that, folks, is no minor or easy task.
So...okay, I've said anti-corporate stuff is a wrong path, so now what smart guy? Good question. Baby steps starting time. Upwardly the level of the dialogue. I just gave out, above, enough deep questions to keep the dialogue going for several years. But what almost the bad guys, they're withal making a mess of the earth, we've got to do something!
Sure. That's right. We've got to do something, considering if we don't act, nosotros will go crazy. And all those things that we are doing and we want to practise, we should continue doing. Simply, don't retrieve that is the whole of it. Just recognize that as we learn, nosotros'll alter what we do, and get more constructive at doing that. As long as a healthy dialogue is going on at the same time, equally long as we are learning, and not stuck in the old, then our doing volition change, will deepen and will work.
Of course, some of what to practise also depends upon what you are willing to do. Blaming all the world's ills on the other guy is pretty easy. Really looking at yourself, and what changes yous tin can do at home, that's difficult.
One of the major characteristics of modern life is our individualism. We desire our own thoughts, our ain infinite, our ain command over the various factors of our existence. We desire the news to be different too. Nosotros want Africa stock-still, the politicians out of role, Russia cured, cancer and Aids eliminated, corporations doomed, poverty and homelessness gone. Okay, in guild to become these things, what cost are we (am I) willing to pay?
Go to a modern American grocery store. We eat food raised solely to sell to us, by companies in tertiary world countries that won't pay decent wages, and which use the local land to abound food for export while their ain people starve. Do we like fast nutrient? How much rain forest was destroyed brand infinite to abound the beef? In these circumstances how culpable are nosotros? And, even more important, can whatever answer nosotros give to such questions be generalized? Is there some answer which everyone is compelled to follow? Should I tell you what to practice? Or you me?
1 of the wise things which appeared in the terminal few years was the idea, think globally, act locally. We can't fix Washington, or Russia, or anyone else but ourselves. And so we accept local AfD capacity, and these groups tin can human action and dialogue, together. Local activity. Whatever they choose every bit a group. Non some policy from the height downwardly, because in a democracy, and in true populism, there is no acme. (Run into my essay: Pragmatic Populist Politics: or, It isn't Easy Being Light-green )
Every time someone in the AfD, or elsewhere for that affair, says some form of the following argument: "we should do ... ", significant past this we either: the AfD every bit a whole, the American People as a whole, or the world as a whole, that someone has mis-spoke themselves. Even when I say it, equally I have above, its a mis-statement. There is no such we. A local grouping, face to face, struggling to consensus can form such a we and observe out how to act as such a we, but the Alliance tin can have all the conventions information technology wants and non notice or create a social organ (functional community of mutual interest) of this kind.
Let'south think a little more than virtually this. I lived in Berekely California in the late '60'south and through the '70'due south. I sabbatum-in, marched, made plans, dreamed dreams, hoped hopes, and always nosotros talked about what nosotros should practice. The reality is that all that energy - the millions all over this nation which believed "we could change the earth" - all that free energy failed. The fact is that the nature of the American authorities turned to the right. It did non become progressive, the establishment did non retreat, merely rather it, in fact, grew in strength and held the White Firm (except for the blip that was the four years of the Carter assistants) from 1968 until 1992. Not only that, but during those aforementioned years it become clear that there were not two political parties, but just ane, then that the Clinton administration, while offering hope, basically was the last expose of everything which those who lived and marched in the 'lx's/'70's dreamed.
It actually becomes necessary to know why this happened before dreaming dreams over again of making the world good and healthy and whole. Something else is going on beside what sits on the surface, and if that is not understood, is non sought for and wrestled with, and so all the adept wishes will but lead to more frustration and hopelessness.
So what is the AfD in the light of this, and what can be done at a "convention", which seems to hateful a great bargain to people. I am not suggesting by this that conventions are useless. One time the limits are understood, the hidden potential can emerge. What are the limits? The convention can't create or form any idea or action which those not nowadays should concord with or consent to. As long every bit the convention doesn't violate this principle, so its participants can do what they choose. They tin effort to make the Alliance stand for anything they want, but, just like the mod politician, I don't accept to like information technology or consent to it. There is naught in populism or democracy that says it has to accept a republican, i.e. representative form. Lets practise real democracy. When and if, the right ideas or actions are plant, nobody will need to be persuaded, or take a vote. At that place will and so be a WE based on a common understanding - worked out over fourth dimension - it will exist populism in fact, non in theory or in hope or wishful thinking or only asserted equally if it was some kind of new magic discussion.
[equally an bated: about the convention, that grouping will fool itself to the extent it tries to form bounden lodge, either on itself or on the local AfD chapters. The convention can exercise dialogue. Its attendees can learn the necessary process. Much can be shared, and brought back to the local chapters. But it tin can't decide things. It tin't fix them, set them in stone. Better is: we did this locally and it worked or failed. Better is edifice relationships. Ameliorate is seeking wisdom.]
At a contempo coming together of the San Francisco AfD, with some Due east Bay and on-line folks, and with Ronnie Dugger, some very interesting things were said. And, while not stated quite then explicilty, this scenario was assumed: one) in club to solve modern social problems we have reform corporations which are in control; 2) in gild to reform corporations we have to (a) fix the campaign finance laws, and (b) larn real political ability; and three) to do this last, we have to detect problems that will draw vast numbers of voters to our crusade, so with this mass of voters nosotros will sweep away the old and supplant it with utopia (yes, folks, the word utopia was used several times).
In the light of what really happened in the 'sixty's/'70'south, this, to a higher place, to me, is just a fantasy. The centre forces, which are truly magnificent, know the world is amiss, and needs redirection. In this our feelings are completely right. Only the heart forces can't create the scenario that leads from the nowadays situation to the new atmospheric condition. All the middle forces tin can exercise is provide the emotional free energy, and the sense of direction - "we go feeling this and nosotros go toward that". At the same fourth dimension as nosotros feel, our thinking has to spend the attempt to understand, and such understanding can just come by being willing to surrender the superficial views we already have. Unless nosotros can sacrifice our fantastic visions of how this is going to come up most, we'll never find that which nosotros demand to really bring our dreams to incarnation.
Baby steps. Deeper dialogue. Local activity. Patience, humility, forbearance and sacrifice. Let me throw out some examples, and so that this last is more than physical.
At that place was a posting a while ago to the On Line Affiliate (number1) of AfD. It was a copy of an editorial written by a Marjore Kelly, in Businesss Ideals, Jan-Feb. 1997 (reproduced in appendix 2, beneath), which gave a very beautiful description of the realities underlying the stock market and the ideas related to stock buy and capital needs. Forth the mode it showed that all the typical political and economic rhetoric was illusory. Here was a fine and wise act of deep thought, which penetrated the smoke and mirrors and made sense out of something which very much needs to exist made sense of.
There needs to be a lot more of this kind of "veil lifting" piece of work. This work does non have an agenda by the way. Rather it seeks to find the truth of the matter and to nowadays that in a fashion in which the ordinary person tin empathize. It leaves it to the reader to determine how to human activity in the confront of the true.
Were the AfD to have up tasks like this, to speak truth (not anti-corporate rhetoric), this truth speaking when then draw others, similar a warm fire draws others on a common cold dark. It is an human action of service, not an act of advocacy.
Several years ago, a friend of mine told me of a meeting he and a pocket-sized group of others had with a pocket-size official from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. This official, who possessed a penetrating and straight forward mind, reportedly said 2 very interesting things. (1) In America in that location are probably over 40,000 CEO's etc. of financial institutions, of which, perhaps, less then 40 actually understand finance. (ii) That if the America public were to be informed of the true nature of cyberbanking and finanace, which could be done in a fairly simple way in perhaps a hour and a half boob tube show, by the side by side morn all the banks in the country would be burned to the footing.
This is a scrap of an exageration, I suspect, but non by much. What does this all mean?
The darkness in the world obtains its greatest power over ordinary people, considering it is able to hibernate and mask its way of operating. The low-cal of truth has the capacity, not to eliminate the darkness, for the darkness has a necessary place, but rather to forcefulness that darkness back from the excessive command it has over our individual lives in mod times. But truth speaking is non advocacy. Advocacy says "this" is the solution. Truth speaking unproblematic lays bare what really goes on underneath the surface of our illusory views of politics, economics and so forth. Truth speaking leaves to the individual the determination of how to act in the face of the truth. (For more on this theme see my essay: A Forgotten Resource: The American Spirit )
Truth speaking is also called upon to be complete. Anti-corporate rhetoric leaves out the good that is washed and has been done through modern economic processess. Its not all bad, and it is a terrible lie to suggest it is all bad. Moreover, in the thing above, concerning the information which might pb to burning the banks down, that kind of truth speaking would be a disservice. To be complete, it would be necessary not only to unveil the truth most modern finance, only to show how it could be inverse into something else.
I have often wondered, what might happen if we started the whole thinking procedure from another direction. Instead of trying to figure out how to defeat the bad guys, we started out by defining what nosotros idea ought to be the good life - Recognizing the enviormental problems and the world wide distribution problems.
Can we all own cars? Can we have individual houses? Tin 1 person earn more than another? Can one person'south children have better schools? What well-nigh a triage system? Nobody gets rich until everybody has the minimum. No, I not suggesting an utopia. I trying to become us to start past defining something we are for , something that includes anybody. What is right for one, should be what is right for all.
In this appendix I have gathered a few comments from the AfD on-line lists. I have done this to suggest that what is written near above is mirrored in many ideas we are already thinking well-nigh and proposing. In the quotes below I have tried to keep the relevant matter (which is in italics and bolded ) with at to the lowest degree some of the context in which information technology originally appeared. Some of the contextual cloth is more than one paragraph, and so I have separated each comment/context by a line. At the terminate of the comment is placed the proper noun of the person to whom was attributed the post.
To pursue this vein further, are we working on those types of things which a geographically various pocket-size grouping can have a substantial impact? No matter how laudable and desirable, most motions are writ big on a large national screen, while our grouping is rather modest with a small (computer screen). I think we should be discussing some motions or actions where we Tin have an impact, perchance much larger than our actual numbers. And I DO Non hateful we have to chain ourselves to the gates and equipment of Champion Paper, as some Earth Commencement!ers did last week in this surface area. >>Ed Rollins
In my opinion, if there'south annihilation to be gained from working together as the AFD information technology'll simply happen when we've learned to piece of work together, whatever that ways. Only whatever it ways, it probably means learning how to focus our energies in some kind of coherent style. >>Gary Berlind
***And mainly, I promise we can stop thinking EITHER/OR for long enough to start/continue THINKING - so that nosotros don't have to remain in an EITHER/OR situation forever. >>Gary Berlind/
IMO the nature of corporate command is more economical than political. Political solutions on their own are a set, destined to be outflanked . The style to reduce corporate power is not to invest in them, not to work for them, and non to purchase from them. If you lot will excuse the war machine language, the battleground is economic. Y'all can win the election and lose the battle. The stop game is economic: a structural adjustment for corporations instead of national or community economies.>>John Rogers
I can't believe nosotros'll e'er accomplish any permanent change as long equally our legislative machinery--both state and Federal--is controlled by corporate coin and power. Martha Avery
Please don�t effort to pull u.s.a. together too shortly. Do aught but support abnormal factions until we can all concur what sticks. Yes, even agent-provocateurs deserve their own factions for the time existence. As soon equally one horse decides to pull off in another direction, we must (i) make enough room for him, (2) provide plenty support, (iii) go on communications open and (4) honour his judgement and values equally we would have him honor our own. In curt, delight help us create a way for all to live in standing brotherhood. >>Mike Barrit
All corporations are shells. They are the same virtual monoliths every bit Toto uncovered for Dorothy just before she clicked her heels one final time. They do not really exist. They are figments in the minds of their workers, customers and media subjects. Corporations only ain u.s.a. (sic) because we agree they should. As with whatsoever corporation, in that location is no AfD unless we all agree there is ane. Rather than making it i I recognize or you lot recognize, information technology is our job to expect closely at what AfD already is and fully describe information technology�no matter how daunting this task may appear. We accept to let data filter up to find out who nosotros actually are. >>Mike Barrit
I am for self-rule. I will oppose majoritarian tryanny with all the forcefulness I posses. If the source of "authority" in AfD ever becomes something other than confront to face reasoning together, I will piece of work to see information technology destroyed. >>John Lowry
We all have things to learn from and with each other. We all have private characteristics which we can amend upon. Difficult every bit it may be on a gut level, our work is to "live the words" with each other; here, now, and in alliance. >>Edmundo Norte
I concord Gar. More power to those who have morals and visions , but I call back for the movement to grow, nosotros must take an consequence based broad appeal, and non pidgeon hole ourselves into a narrow category. To exclude or offend those who do not share our grouping or individual vision or morality unnecessarily limits our appeal. I think favoring expanded economic and political democracy is sufficient for a populist motion. >From at that place we fill in the details. >>Ed Rollins
That democracy is more than than a Constitution, elections, and institutions; information technology is a recognition of the nobility, worth, and ultimate wisdom of the people. It is an expression of love for humanity (the recognition of the phenomenon of intelligent and conscientious life, the just case nosotros withal know in all of vast and virtually space universe) and the want that governments practise all that is possible to allow man beings to alive in dignity, rubber, and with equal opportunities to develop their mental and social capacities as far as they want to carry them. If this is non a "spiritual" value, I do not know where whatever other can be constitute. And if we practice non possess it equally the very foundation of our reason for being a part of the AfD move, and if information technology isn't articulated in some way in all that we propose, we are doomed to failure. >>Ed Plunkett
I'm sad, merely the last matter an organization trying to unite on issues needs is a spiritual vision. I think spiritual and moral matters are best left to the private.
I suspect that what an arrangement such equally ours can come together around are bug, and peradventure tactics, and that whatsoever shared spiritual or moral vision needs to remain I think shared moral or spirtual footing needs to be defined implictly rather than explicitly. >> Gar Lipow
End corporate domination of civilisation . >> Mike Barrett
I am pleased and proud to exist a member of the Alliance for Democracy. I concord wholeheartedly with its basic sense of where our society is, and with its cess of what the problems are. Nonetheless, the CURE for this pervasive and grave social, economical, political, and cultural malaise is not so piece of cake to envision, allow alone bring virtually. A group of highly intelligent and informed persons who realize the gravity and urgency of the state of affairs cannot - unfortunately - organize and command an army of political soldiers to prosecute a campaign to result change - from the top down. It won't work. It isn't working. We need to consult together in depth and at length , to analyze and define what the structure and functions of the national Alliance should exist. We badly need to dull downwards now, or nosotros will never go upwardly to speed in the future. >> Charles Johnson
My personal opinion is that our task is to coalesce a sure torso of thought and build a movement with it, to reinvigorate the grass roots through movement building. Party political activity just doesn't make sense to me correct now . (On the local level, however, I am intensely involved in electoral politics, where a scattering of grassroots activists can still make a difference and where the amounts of money in campaigns are still relatively balanced. In fact I am an good at utilizing voter registration databases for local political activity.) >> Ben Sher
Allow me to make a prediction. Those fortunate enough to exist at the upcoming convention volition find themselves in one of the most demanding and intense experiences of their lives. The wish to resolve it all earlier going dwelling house volition be strong. I experience that wish should be valiantly resisted, and those present should apply their time together to be clear in their own thinking and spare in speaking - and cultivate the quietness necessary for truly respectful listening.
> On nine/6/97 Judith Simpson (of tns-consultants) wrote: > >I guarantee that if ten or xv people sit together in a circle and speak > >together (about the fourth systems condition), using all of the guidelines to > >dialogue: no interruptions, temporarily set aside judgement, listen deeply, > >speak > >what you are feeling and thinking without defending what you say, and respect > >each person equally; that a deep and personal truth will develop amidst those > >people. They will learn together, and will discover something new to each > >person there. If they repeat this process a number of times, each > >conversation will be new, and each person will learn more and more deeply > >what the (systems condition) really ways. And, at a sure time, when the > >group has learned together, information technology will act.
This description of guidelines for effective and creative dialogue contains the basic elements of interpersonal advice that really "works." I recollect we in the Alliance should study this kind of process - even practice it at the convention ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! >>Charles Johnson
The corporations have grown out of control because of the way "individual property" has come up to be interpreted. But it seems the people may be ready to motion away from outdated interpretations of sometime rules. They seem ready to say corporations are non "private property," and should not be treated as such, at police force or in equity. Before long, hopefully, someone will detect the right words. >>John Lowry
OK, it'due south a sad, crazy world, and we live here. "Consciousness" may not be what it seems. People may non mean what they say. We overthrew the King but are quite comfortable with lords of the land. Become effigy.
I think a civilisation is a living entity acting out some "manifest destiny" supported by the rituals, literature, myths, etc. "Democracy" is ours. But we are non there still, and our vision is obscured by knowing merely small-scale parts in this story, and not the whole plot, which remians to be cast.
We are creatures of habit, and tin change established behavior patterns only with dedication and will. The way we think is likewise mostly habit.
To alter our minds, to change the cultural story we act out in social relations, nosotros will first accept to face the fear of having no story, of being dis-oriented. I retrieve this is the fright being expressed in the current discord. >>John Lowry
This is ane reason I was disappointed that the word about whether AfD should form an arrangement at all never took place. If we didn't course an organizaton, nosotros wouldn't have consitutions, bylaws, and elections. There are other alternatives . Think of all the actress time we would have to work on issues. >>Genevieve Marcus
Basically, I remember we need to modify the globe'southward mind, to identify and ignominy corporate dominion and the corporate construction itself, and to precipitate and organize a critical mass of the people to suspension costless of corpo-think and the consumerist culture. This requires us to keep our appeal wide past focusing on fundamental commonalities that bring people together, rather than by trying to accelerate the plan of any particular ideology. (sorry I seem to accept lost who wrote this; if your recognize it slip me an e-mail and I will correct the ommision)
Editorial by Marjorie Kelly, in Business Ethics, January/February ,1997, page 5.
Why all the Fuss Near Stockholders? Where does wealth come from? More precisely, where does the wealth of public corporations come from? Who creates it?
To judge past the current arrangement, ane might suppose capital creates wealth -- which is odd, because a pile of capital creates null. Yet upper-case letter-providers, stockholders, lay merits to all wealth public corporations generate. They also claim the more fundamental correct to have corporations managed exclusively on their behalf. Corporations are believed to exist for i purpose: to maximize returns to shareholders.
This message is reinforced by CEOs, The Wall Street Journal, business schools, and the courts. It is the guiding idea of the public corporation, and the constabulary of the land -- much as the divine right of kings was one time the police of the state. Indeed, the notion of "maximizing returns to shareholders" is universally accepted as a kind of divine, unchallengeable truth. It is not in the least controversial. Though it should be.
What practice shareholders contribute, to justify the boggling allegiance they receive? They have risk, we're told. They put their money on the line, so corporations might grow and prosper. Let's test the truth of this with a little quiz: Stockholders fund public corporations -- True or Fake? False. We speak as though information technology were true: "I take invested in AT&T," we say -- imagining AT&T as a steward of our money, with a fiduciary responsibility to accept intendance of information technology. In fact, dollars don't go to AT&T, only to other speculators. "Investments" accomplish a public corporation but when new disinterestedness is issued -- a rare event.
Public corporations demand capital to operate -- $555 billion in 1993, for example. According to the Federal Reserve, equity contributed 4 percent of that. Borrowing provided 14 per centum; retained earnings, 82 percent. From 1987 to 1994, corporations bought dorsum more than equity than they issued. Dividends flowed out in generous streams: $1.ii trillion. Capital gains piled up. Merely the period of funds the other way was nil.
Well, aye, critics will say -- that'due south recently. Simply stockholders are pocketing gains today, because they funded corporations in the by. Not and so. Accept the steel manufacture. A report by Eldon Hendrickson examined capital letter expenditures from 1900 to 1953, and institute that common stock provided only 5 percentage of capital -- over the entire showtime one-half of the 20th century.
Equity upper-case letter is 1 relatively minor source of funding, vital at a sure indicate. Yet it entices holders to suck out all wealth, forever. Equity investors essentially install a pipeline, and decree that corporations' sole purpose is to funnel wealth into it. The pipeline is never to be tampered with -- and no one else is to exist granted access (except CEOs, whose role is to go on it flowing). With the exception of initial public offerings, the commotion on Wall Street is non nigh funding corporations. It's nearly extracting from them.
The productive risk in building businesses is borne by entrepreneurs and their initial venture investors, who do contribute real investing dollars to create existent wealth. Those who buy stock at 6th or seventh hand, or 1,000th manus, take a chance -- but it is a take chances speculators take among themselves, trying to outwit one some other, like gamblers. It every bit little to do with corporations, except this: Public companies are required to provide new fries for the gaming table, into infinity.
It's odd And it's connected to a second oddity -- that we believe stockholders are the corporation. When we say "a corporation did well," we hateful its shareholders did well. Employees might be shouldering an outsized workload, getting past without health insurance, doing without a enhance for three years -- still we will say, "the corporation did well." 1 never sees rising employee income as a measure out of corporate success. Indeed, gains to employees are losses to the corporation. Employees tin go to work for xx years, using all their energy to create wealth for a visitor -- yet not really be considered part of that corporation. They have no claim to wealth they create, no say in governance, and no vote for the lath of directors.
Investors, on the other hand, may not know the names of the companies they "own."They may non know where "their" companies are located, or what they produce -- and they may concur stock for only a solar day. Still, corporations be to enrich them lonely. Simply those who own stock can vote, similar an before fourth dimension in America, when only those who owned land could vote. Employees are disenfranchised.
We think of this as the natural police of the free market. It'southward actually the regime-made constabulary of the corporation. And it violates free market principles. In a costless market, everyone scrambles to get what they can, and keeps what they earn. In the artificial construct of the corporation, one group gets what some other earns. One group contributes nothing, never lifts a finger, and takes no responsibility ("express liability'') -- yet has a "legitimate" correct to siphon off all wealth. Some other group does all the work, and makes the corporation a success -- even so counts itself lucky non to be thrown off the premises in a layoff.
The oddity of this is veiled past the incantation of a unmarried, magical give-and-take: "ownership." Because we say stockholders "ain" corporations, they are permitted to contribute nothing, and take everything.
What an extraordinary word. I is tempted to recall Lycophron'southward annotate, during an early Athenian movement against slavery. "The splendor of noble nascency is imaginary," he dared to say, "and its prerogatives are based upon a mere word."
Marjorie Kelly is the editor of Business Ethics, 52 S. tenth St., Suite 110, Minneapolis, MN 55403, U.Southward.A. For a free copy of Business Ideals send an e-mail request with your accost to BizEthics@aol.com.
Author's Notation: I'm working on a book about this and would like to find colleagues to discuss early drafts. E-mail MarjorieHK@aol.com ) or fax (612) 962-4706. Don 't call! Let's be old-fashioned and write.
Federal Reserve Statistics are from Bureau of the Demography, Statistical Abstruse of the United States, 1994.
Source: http://ipwebdev.com/hermit/alrnt.html
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